Pick and place robotic grippers having bearing or bushing members for opening and closing an opposed pair of fingers are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,211,123 and 4,234,223. A fluid-operated power actuator is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,167,134. Prior art grippers generally use opposed fingers, which limit them to simple pick and place operations wherein the shape of the articles which may be handled as well as the relative amount of gripping action afforded is severely circumscribed. Due to the fact that parts having close tolerances including a plunger in the form of a clevis bracket with mating joint is required, a relatively expensive construction has been the result. Due to the complexity of prior art constructions such did not readily lend themselves to mass production.
Accordingly, it is an important object of this invention to provide an improved robotic gripper of simplified construction which will be relatively inexpensive to manufacture.
Another important object of this invention is to provide a robotic gripper having simplified operator mechanism facilitating a versatile jaw or gripper finger arrangement facilitating the size and variety of objects which may be handled thereby.